Word: chirp
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...minutes they learned the complete grammar of the international language from Graham E. Fuller '59. Within 45 minutes the linguists were all back out in the cold Cambridge air, prepared to chirp, "Cu vi parolas esperante?" to shivering policemen...
...Hand me my dulcy-more," 62-year-old "Aunt" Ellen Fields will chirp to a visitor at her house near Viper. "This thang hain't much good any more. Ah put in a new fret-just took a pin and bit the head offen h'it-but h'it still don't play too good." When she plays, she puts the three-stringed instrument across her lap, then strums out the tune on the top string while the bottom two give off a thin, constant drone. For lonesome songs, she tunes the top string down...
...give lifelike imitations of the screech owl's eerie, fluty tremolo. Others carry the Audubon Bird Call-a tiny birchwood tube in which they rotate a pewter plunger: it squeaks like crazy. Latest gadget is a 98? plastic "bird" with a trombone slide that can be made to chirp and whistle arpeggios like an amorous cardinal or sing the mournful minor of the white-throated sparrow...
...which calls for old clothes, field glasses and an abundant knowledge of bird lore. They know, for instance, that a robin sings, not because he is happy, but because he has just staked out a claim to a clump of trees or a bride, and his song is a chirp-on-shoulder challenge to the rest of the robin community...
...tape recorder was unwound: Low Speed, Invention and Fantasy in Space by Otto Luening and Sonic Contours by Vladimir Ussachevsky. Out of the loudspeaker came the sound of a flute-but a flute that could growl like a bassoon, or thunder like the trump of doom, as well as chirp like a bird-and the sound of a piano that seemed to accompany itself with organ tones. Haunting both instruments was a maze of echoes and pulsing overtones...